


A Clarification On Deep Scans

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [125]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, Psi Cops, Psi Corps, Worldbuilding, shameless self-insertion, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 12:59:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14977652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: I may not have been clear enough in my last essay on the subject, so I revisit.Edit 6/21/18: Massive re-write coming soon, to this and the other essay! Much more clarity, on its way!





	A Clarification On Deep Scans

**Author's Note:**

> The prologue of _Behind the Gloves_ is [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10153487) \- please read!
> 
> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

I wrote an essay [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14743718/chapters/34086038) about what "scanning" really means from the telepath's point of view, but some folks were still a little confused.

  * It's Babylon 5 canon that deep scans are painful (e.g. when Talia is scanned in _Mind War_ , when Matheson is scanned in _The Well of Forever_ , and in various other places). "Medium" scans are somewhere in between a [light scan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14065014) (someone may or may not be able to feel it, depending on various things), and a deep scan - normals can feel a "medium" scan, it may be uncomfortable and cause someone to become dizzy and light-headed. (There's an example of this in the books when Bester scans the local mundane police chief on Beta.)


  * That said, from the telepath's point of view, it still is a matter of how close one pays attention and what one _intends_ to happen (as I said in my "Where's Waldo" analogy, when one is actively looking for Waldo). That's not sitting there and concentrating on a certain result, it's more like when you pick up a pen and move it with the intention that it writes. You expect it to work, you move it over the paper, and sure enough, it usually does. You don't have to think about the ink moving through the pen - you just have to pick it up and intend to write something.


  * A Psi Cop can, of course, _intend_ to make something hurt ("[Also? I can kill you with my brain!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4yzkefot3c)"). The strange part is that I'm not entirely clear if they can make it _not_ hurt. On one hand, canon seems to imply that's not possible, which is why Bester and Kelsey really don't have any _choice_ about hurting Talia when they need to know if she knows more about Ironheart. There is certainly no reason to hurt her - this isn't a case of [what he did to Endra on Mars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10903194), where he _did_ intend to hurt her before he completely fried her. (After she threw a weapon and came _this close_ to murdering his intern.)


  * But this is where things get a little weird and I'm not sure if canon's being inconsistent or I'm just missing something Obvious (I'm going with the latter for the moment), because yes, telepaths do make love and yes telepaths do get into each other's minds in All The Ways (as Talia briefly mentions in _Mind War_... we'll see how far I'm willing to venture into a discussion of that as time goes on, but for now I'm carefully avoiding it). And I can't remotely fathom why, in that world, something as straightforward as looking for information should be immensely painful, while other things that are far more intimate should be quite different.


  * Nor do I understand how Psi Cops, who have _such_ power and control, can't make scans not hurt. That should be easy.



If I get answers to these questions, I'll post about it.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's been a while since I've posted a narrative story to _Behind the Gloves_. Those take longer to write, and June has been a very busy month. I hope to have more narrative stories for you all in the near future!
> 
> In the meantime, I'm working with an artist to get some professional level artwork up here (cross-posted to Tumblr), a friend of mine is in the process of launching a B5 forum for discussion, and I've posted a Technomage story [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14861045)!


End file.
